Economics & Business Archive

The coming crisis of American power that is sure to follow the November election will be unique in U.S. history. Competing with China, Russia and whatever other major rivals may emerge will be less about aircraft carriers, fighter jets, nuclear submarines and stealth bombers than ever before, and more about helping other governments meet the vital needs of their citizens. Although the United States suddenly has much less of a hard power edge than it once did, due to China’s rapid and ambitious modernization of its military, and particularly its navy, Americans should treat skeptically the calls that are bound […]

French President Emmanuel Macron has clearly decided to up the ante in a standoff with Turkey in the Eastern Mediterranean, where France is backing Greece and Cyprus in their dispute with Ankara over natural gas reserves and maritime boundaries. First, Macron ordered a temporary reinforcement of French aerial and naval assets to the Eastern Mediterranean in mid-August, in response to Turkish ships resuming controversial gas exploration activities south of Cyprus. Then, he went as far as to frame his actions as a “red line policy” in order to show President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that he meant business. Although France’s military […]

Though changes in trade policy create winners and losers within a given country, the net effect of lowering import tariffs is generally positive for the country’s economy as a whole. Now, however, tariffs are already low, so the trade agenda involves mostly addressing regulatory and other “technical” barriers to trade generated by countries’ domestic policies, with a core principle of international trade rules being to ensure that these domestic policies do not discriminate against imports. But using legally binding trade agreements to influence the substance of policies that apply to both imports and domestic products alike can create friction between […]

When Kyriakos Mitsotakis came to power as prime minister in July last year, he had a familiar pitch to Greeks. In opposition to the populist, left-wing government under the Syriza party, he offered an economically liberal and technocratic program that would attract foreign investment and do away with many of the ailments that have plagued Greece’s state machinery for decades. A year later, though, things are not where Mitsotakis hoped they would be. The COVID-19 pandemic derailed not just his economic plans, but the global economy as a whole. He now faces some all-too familiar economic and political problems in […]

Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China. Guest contributor Thomas Lee wrote the lead story in China Note this week. Amid a global pandemic and a summer of natural disasters and social unrest in the United States, it might be easy to forget that the country is still locked in a destructive trade war with China. Not that China itself is far from the minds of the two major U.S. presidential candidates, especially President Donald Trump. During last week’s Republican National Convention, Trump not surprisingly went […]

On July 24, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan joined thousands of worshippers in the streets around the historic Hagia Sophia in Istanbul for a doubly symbolic moment. Surrounded by a swarm of politicians, soldiers, security forces and imams, the Turkish leader made his way into the giant, former Byzantine cathedral through doors once hammered open by conquering Ottoman soldiers in 1453. Inside, he read out the namaz, or Muslim prayer, formally turning the 1,500-year-old building back into a mosque. In doing so, Erdogan was turning the page on nine decades of recent history, during which this extraordinary structure and UNESCO […]